eBay to Sell Stake in Flipkart for about $1.1 billion, to re-launch eBay India

Online marketplace eBay has decided to end its strategic partnership with Flipkart and relaunch eBay India with a differentiated offer to focus on cross-border trade, said a company statement on Wednesday. eBay has notified ecommerce player Flipkart and US retail giant Walmart that it intends to sell its holdings in Flipkart, worth around $1.1billion.

“Following the close of the transaction, we also will be ending our current strategic relationship with Flipkart, which includes unwinding our commercial agreements with Flipkart and terminating Flipkart’s license to use the eBay.in brand,” as per the company’s statement Flipkart had bought eBay India operations last year. The funding round of $1.4 billion in 2017 saw participation of Microsoft,Tencent and eBay where eBay had invested about $500 million in Flipkart and got another $220 million worth of shares from selling its India business to Flipkart.

Flipkart had said during its acquisition of eBay.in that the platform would be leveraged for cross-border trade, a move designed to give Flipkart’s vendors access to eBay’s global customers and Flipkart’s customers access to eBay’s global inventory of products. Following this an email was sent to ‘select sellers’ providing an opportunity to sell on eBay.in platform, but nothing significant took off. And now seems like eBay India is going on the path of cross-border selling without Flipkart. “We believe there is huge growth potential for ecommerce in India and significant opportunity for multiple players to succeed in India’s diverse, domestic market,” added the statement.